Network performance monitoring, i.e. collecting and/or reporting network performance data, is a vital task for network operators of any kind of communication network. A clear and complete picture of network performance, in particular in geographical problem areas or geographical areas intended for deployment of new network facilities, is important for the operator in order to be able to appropriately plan, deploy, and control its network facilities, or to enable self-optimization of networks.
In an effort to gain such a clear and complete picture of network performance, drive tests are usually employed, in which network performance data are gathered by cruising around, e.g. by car or train, and performing measurements of network performance parameters by means of a terminal device, e.g. a user equipment UE. Thereby, terminal-related network performance parameters may be measured either manually or automatically.
While manual and extensive drive tests have previously been common and necessary, automation as well as minimization of drive tests is currently desired to reduce network operation and maintenance costs, ensure faster optimization cycles, and to protect the environment by reducing carbon emissions.
In the following, reference is made to current efforts in automating and minimizing drive tests, which is intended as a non-limiting example for impacts of network performance monitoring.
Minimizing drive tests has currently been addressed in 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Program), with the scope of the work being feasibility, benefits and complexity of automating the collection of UE measurements to minimize the need of manual drive tests. In this regard, the necessity of defining new capabilities for logging and reporting UE measurements for minimizing drive tests is being investigated.
A recent study on minimization of drive tests in next generation networks covers use cases defined in this field and some UE measurements addressing these use cases. The identified use cases aim to enable automatic methods for monitoring of network parameters.
In order to replace drive tests performed manually, new UE measurement logs (i.e. sets of measurements of specific entities) have been proposed. Corresponding UE measurements should be taken at the occurrence of a predefined trigger, which can be either periodical or a specific event, e.g. a failure event. In addition, location information could be attached to the measurements, if available, to make geographical areas distinguishable, which differ in network quality. The UE reports information based on the log it has provided.
However, when only the UE is sending measurement reports, as currently proposed, an analysis of the report, which is delivered periodically or when the terminal has encountered a problem, can not be sufficiently accurate. This is due to the lack of any information about the underlying network situation or network-related aspects of network performance, i.e. current and previous network performance data from the perspective of the network such as e.g. the (radio) access network. Since such information on the underlying network situation is expedient for a proper analysis of the overall network performance, the findings on the basis of an (incomplete) measurement report from the terminal are devaluated because of being weighted down with lost knowledge of the network performance.
Accordingly, in view of the above, there is a need for techniques for enabling the finding of a clear and complete picture of network performance even in automated and/or minimized network performance monitoring.